Earth's Wobble Blamed For Climate Change

Is it the Earth's wobble that is responsible for all of our global warming debates?! Can it be completely ruled out as a major contributor?

Climate experts and biologists led by Jan van Dam at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, overlaid a picture of species emergence and extinction with changes that occur in Earth's orbit and axis.

The Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle: it is slightly elliptical, and the ellipticality itself goes through cycles of change that span roughly 100,000 and 400,000 years.

Its axis, likewise, is not perfectly perpendicular but has a slight wobble, rather like a poorly-balanced child's top, which goes through cycles of 21,000 years.

In addition, the axis, as schoolbooks tell us, is also tilted, and this tilt also varies in a cycle of 41,000 years.

These three shifts in Earth's pattern of movement are relatively minor compared with those of other planets.

But they can greatly influence the amount of radiation -- heat and light -- which Earth receives from the Sun. The effect can be amplified, causing global cooling, affecting precipitation patterns and even creating Ice Ages in higher latitudes, when two or all the cycles peak together.

The sun is also to blame for global warming (fairly obvious) according to the "principle of Occum" (simplest explaination being usually correct). This writer points to an "8000 year high" of which I was unaware. This whole blog, linked below, has some very insightful links and contributions.

The Sun is, however, the primary heating agent in this system. The principle of Occam indicates that the simplest answer is most likely correct. The amount of energy coming from the sun dwarfs the heat reservoir of the oceans. The sun is not restricted to heating the atmosphere only. The Sun’s energy directly heats (or cools) the oceans and the earth (land).

Dr. Vezier of the U of Ottawa has written a paper that is consistent with this common sense.

The Sun has been at an 8000 year high. This most likely is the cause of the high ocean temperatures between 1998 and 2004. Anyone who doubts that the sun is the cause need only look at the graphs from the NPAL acoustic thermometry to see that it goes up and down with summer and winter.

Nice work, the other week I calculated the "black body" temperature of Earth here of the last 30,000 years to show that the Holocene Thermal Optimum of about 9000-6000 years ago would be real despite attempts of certain warmer alarmist to kill it and that those could have been caused by the Earth wobbles or Milankovitch cycles.

Especially the summer insolation on the Northern Hemisphere appears to be an important factor. Nevertheless the matter is much to complicated to blame those extinctions on wobbles only.

Evidently we are currently heading for a slightly colder period so it cannot explain current warming events.

Yes Andre, I wondered if you had or had not added to this compilation of entries I have linked.

About the "Speed Bump"

This mystery is a critical question, as it is not known if this is just a “speed bump”, or indicates that we have a poorer understanding of the climate system, even in terms of global average radiative heating, than has been advocated by the international climate assessments such as the IPCC.

The way this new research result has been communicated to the public is also quite informative with respect to the media’s perspective on the climate change issue. One news article is headlined “Short-Term Ocean Cooling Suggests Global Warming” . This is not only a self-contradiction, but scientifically incorrect. Ocean cooling indicates “global cooling”! (see)

Using the Occam principle I would start with the Milankovitch cycles as the most likely overall cause for anything that happens on our planet. Generally, when there is a Russian or Baltic name associated with a study or theory it is usually ignored or lamblasted.

The sun is also to blame for global warming (fairly obvious) according to the "principle of Occum" (simplest explaination being usually correct). This writer points to an "8000 year high" of which I was unaware. This whole blog, linked below, has some very insightful links and contributions.

The sun's energy output has barely varied over the past 1,000 years, raising chances that global warming has human rather than celestial causes...
...The solar contribution to warming over the past 30 years is negligible,"

The activity of the Sun over the last 11,400 years, i.e., back to the end of the last ice age on Earth, has now for the first time been reconstructed quantitatively by an international group of researchers led by Sami K. Solanki from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany). The scientists have analyzed the radioactive isotopes in trees that lived thousands of years ago. As the scientists from Germany, Finland, and Switzerland report in the current issue of the science journal "Nature" from October 28, one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years.

This study is from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research so it has some good merit as a response to a study sited by CNN. Link below.

However, most of these temp. studies rely on isotope analysis of ancient trees and Andre has shown some resistance to this with substantial evidence to back his position.

Other than the use of isotope analysis I don't know of any historic figures that have been measuring the temperature of the sun over the last 1000 years. Possibly in China where we (westerners) hold little knowledge of their scientific history and/or achievements. So, how do we claim to know what the sun has been doing for the last 1000 or 10,000 years. What is certain is that we have been in the same orbit(s) for longer than that (and that they are repetitious).

Here's a quote from the same source

Because the brightness of the Sun varies slightly with solar activity, the new reconstruction indicates also that the Sun shines somewhat brighter today than in the 8,000 years before. Whether this effect could have provided a significant contribution to the global warming of the Earth during the last century is an open question. The researchers around Sami K. Solanki stress the fact that solar activity has remained on a roughly constant (high) level since about 1980 - apart from the variations due to the 11-year cycle - while the global temperature has experienced a strong further increase during that time. On the other hand, the rather similar trends of solar activity and terrestrial temperature during the last centuries (with the notable exception of the last 20 years) indicates that the relation between the Sun and climate remains a challenge for further research.

The Sun has been at an 8000 year high. This most likely is the cause of the high ocean temperatures between 1998 and 2004. Anyone who doubts that the sun is the cause need only look at the graphs from the NPAL acoustic thermometry to see that it goes up and down with summer and winter

Somehow I don't trust CNN either I haven't looked at the blog yet, but considering nannoh's view on it, and the blog just being about this topic, I would give much more credit than CNN. I am really not impressed with them at all on science. Associated Press is worse.

However, most of these temp. studies rely on isotope analysis of ancient trees and Andre has shown some resistance to this with substantial evidence to back his position.

Link than anybody?

Other than the use of isotope analysis I don't know of any historic figures that have been measuring the temperature of the sun over the last 1000 years. Possibly in China where we (westerners) hold little knowledge of their scientific history and/or achievements.

Nope, don't trust their thousand-year-old "scientific" records anyway. They probably marked down novas and eclipses, but not radiation intensity.

So, how do we claim to know what the sun has been doing for the last 1000 or 10,000 years. What is certain is that we have been in the same orbit(s) for longer than that (and that they are repetitious).

Where does it come from? I don't know but perhaps somebody that does know can verify or show me up on my guessing.ftp://airchem.sph.unc.edu/courses/envr133/Jeffries/solarins.pdf
Pages 13, 14, and 17 most interested me. I asked myself what information could we have that would tell us the intensity of solar radiation for 500,000 years(!). On page 13 it hits the Earth's orbit and states that "Kepler’s Laws states that planet orbits are elliptical with the Sun at one foci. The parameters of an orbit include its eccentricity (see Figure 10) which is given by <equation> where a and b are the distance from the Sun to the perihelion (point of closest approach) and aphelion (point of maximum distance). The present eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit is 0.017, but as we shall see it can vary from 0.000483 to 0.060791 with a period of 110,000 years (see figure below)."

Ah ha. What other data could we possibly have? This seems prone to error, but is very beautiful.

So we ask the astrophysicists about Kepler's Laws and where the foci are, and all we need to know until we can model the Earth's orbit eccentricity. This should correspond to the intensity laid upon us!

Sure enough, the New Zealand organization's graph correspond's to the Sun-Earth distance/time (Precession) on page 17. I'm guessing this is how it is done. The graph on the last page looks just like the sunspot number in the yellow graph.

What else but eccentricity in the sun's output would mess us up? :rofl: I think we forgot a vital part.

Somehow I don't trust CNN either I haven't looked at the blog yet, but considering nannoh's view on it, and the blog just being about this topic, I would give much more credit than CNN. I am really not impressed with them at all on science. Associated Press is worse.

Link than anybody?

Nope, don't trust their thousand-year-old "scientific" records anyway. They probably marked down novas and eclipses, but not radiation intensity.

Where does it come from? I don't know but perhaps somebody that does know can verify or show me up on my guessing.ftp://airchem.sph.unc.edu/courses/envr133/Jeffries/solarins.pdf
Pages 13, 14, and 17 most interested me. I asked myself what information could we have that would tell us the intensity of solar radiation for 500,000 years(!). On page 13 it hits the Earth's orbit and states that "Kepler’s Laws states that planet orbits are elliptical with the Sun at one foci. The parameters of an orbit include its eccentricity (see Figure 10) which is given by <equation> where a and b are the distance from the Sun to the perihelion (point of closest approach) and aphelion (point of maximum distance). The present eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit is 0.017, but as we shall see it can vary from 0.000483 to 0.060791 with a period of 110,000 years (see figure below)."

Ah ha. What other data could we possibly have? This seems prone to error, but is very beautiful.

So we ask the astrophysicists about Kepler's Laws and where the foci are, and all we need to know until we can model the Earth's orbit eccentricity. This should correspond to the intensity laid upon us!

Sure enough, the New Zealand organization's graph correspond's to the Sun-Earth distance/time (Precession) on page 17. I'm guessing this is how it is done. The graph on the last page looks just like the sunspot number in the yellow graph.

What else but eccentricity in the sun's output would mess us up? :rofl: I think we forgot a vital part.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions MK. I want to address your points and find the links you've asked for; time permitting.

For now I just wanted to say that although there are many causes to measure in our search for the source of warming/cooling, it remains true that using fossil fuels as a source of energy is detrimental to the health of our population and other populations that rely on the earth's environment to survive.

Not only is there a detriment to basic survival inherent in the use of fossil fuels there is a detriment to the economies of all nations because of a monopolistic dependency on this non-renewable resource. A shortage will lead to uncontrollable civil strife and most certainly to continued invasions of sovereign nations causing perpetual wars. All of this can be avoided with the use of some foresight and utilization of the genius demonstrated by some of the leaders of international industries.

So we (as a species) can blame the sun and the wobble and countless other phenomenon for our climate changes but, ultimately, we must take responsiblity for our response and our own political and social climate and its progress as a whole.

....So we (as a species) can blame the sun and the wobble and countless other phenomenon for our climate changes but, ultimately, we must take responsiblity for our response and our own political and social climate and its progress as a whole.

Whilst this is obviously very clear, we must understand that we are dealing with two things, (1) the highly complicated physical / chemical processes on a solar system level at least, which steer climate and
(2) the way how to manage the increasing pressure on Earth's resources

The question is if it is morally justified to merge the two in the anthropogenic catastrophic runaway greenhouse fairy tale, misusing the positive feedback loop of scaremongering and the need to be scared of the public, to accomplish the desired effect.

We are likely to find out soon, within a decade or two or so, that this trick will have an adverse effect, if we don't stop it soon enough. Ultimately the emissions will reduce drastically, but not because we have managed to convert to renewables, but because wrongs "facts" leads to wrong decisions and the policy decision making guidance by the scareremongering mechanisms may be heading for disaster.

For now I just wanted to say that although there are many causes to measure in our search for the source of warming/cooling, it remains true that using fossil fuels as a source of energy is detrimental to the health of our population and other populations that rely on the earth's environment to survive.

Not only is there a detriment to basic survival inherent in the use of fossil fuels there is a detriment to the economies of all nations because of a monopolistic dependency on this non-renewable resource. A shortage will lead to uncontrollable civil strife and most certainly to continued invasions of sovereign nations causing perpetual wars. All of this can be avoided with the use of some foresight and utilization of the genius demonstrated by some of the leaders of international industries.

So we (as a species) can blame the sun and the wobble and countless other phenomenon for our climate changes but, ultimately, we must take responsiblity for our response and our own political and social climate and its progress as a whole.

In response to my post? If so I am confused. I was just trying to figure out how solar intensity over time is inferred. I didn't say anything about the sun's effect on the Earth at all.

MK. Sorry, I mixed my response to you with what appears to be an election campaign speech.:yuck:

Andre, scaremongering really only belongs to the politicians and the politically/monetarily motivated corporates. It is a tactic that doesn't work in the long term and our response to climate change needs a solution that is a long term solution.

Our response may be learning to live underground where, it is rumored, most of N.Korea's modernized cities are now situated. As fewer and fewer environs provide sustainablility to humans, we'll have to make our own environments and become troglodytes. We'll become a bit like astronauts on our own planet.

Andre, scaremongering really only belongs to the politicians and the politically/monetarily motivated corporates. It is a tactic that doesn't work in the long term and our response to climate change needs a solution that is a long term solution.

I don't think so. Scaremongering is inherent to our needs. We need an evil enemy, be it dragons devils, huns, commies or whatever.

Almost as soon as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming came into effect on February 15, Kashmir suffered the highest snowfall in three decades with over 150 killed, and Mumbai recorded the lowest temperature in 40 years. Had temperatures been the highest for decades, newspapers would have declared this was proof of global warming. But whenever temperatures drop, the press keeps quiet.

Things were different in 1940-70, when there was global cooling. Every cold winter then was hailed as proof of a coming new Ice Age. But the moment cooling was replaced by warming, a new disaster in the opposite direction was proclaimed.

A recent Washington Post article gave this scientist's quote from 1972. "We simply cannot afford to gamble. We cannot risk inaction. The scientists who disagree are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored." The warning was not about global warming (which was not happening): it was about global cooling!

In the media, disaster is news, and its absence is not. This principle has been exploited so skillfully by ecological scare-mongers that it is now regarded as politically incorrect, even unscientific, to denounce global warming hysteria as unproven speculation.

Meteorologists are a standing joke for getting predictions wrong even a few days ahead. The same jokers are being taken seriously when they use computer models to predict the weather 100 years hence.

The models have not been tested for reliability over 100 years, or even 20 years. Different models yield variations in warming of 400%, which means they are statistically meaningless.

Wassily Leontief, Nobel prize winner for modeling, said this about the limits of models. "We move from more or less plausible but really arbitrary assumptions, to elegantly demonstrated but irrelevant conclusions." Exactly. Assume continued warming as in the last three decades, and you get a warming disaster. Assume more episodes of global cooling, and you get a cooling disaster.

In his latest best seller State of Fear, Michael Crichton does a devastating expose of the way ecological groups have tweaked data and facts to create mass hysteria. He points out that we know astonishingly little about the environment. All sides make exaggerated claims.

We know that atmospheric carbon is increasing. We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that started in 1850 at the end of what is called the Little Ice Age. It is scientifically impossible to prove whether the subsequent warming is natural or man-made.

Greens say, rightly, that the best scientific assessment today is that global warming is occurring. Yet never in history have scientists accurately predicted what will happen 100 years later. A century ago no scientists predicted the internet, microwave ovens, TV, nuclear explosions or antibiotics. It is impossible, even stupid, to predict the distant future.

That scientific truth is rarely mentioned. Why? Because the global warming movement has now become a multi-billion dollar enterprise with thousands of jobs and millions in funding for NGOs and think-tanks, top jobs and prizes for scientists, and huge media coverage for predictions of disaster.

The vested interests in the global warming theory are now as strong, rich and politically influential as the biggest multinationals. It is no co-incidence, says Crichton, that so many scientists sceptical of global warming are retired professors: they have no need to chase research grants and chairs.

I have long been an agnostic on global warming: the evidence is ambiguous. But I almost became a convert when Greenpeace publicised photos showing the disastrously rapid retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina. How disastrous, I thought, if this was the coming fate of all glaciers.

Then last Christmas, I went on vacation to Lake Argentina. The Upsala glacier and six other glaciers descend from the South Andean icefield into the lake. I was astounded to discover that while the Upsala glacier had retreated rapidly, the other glaciers showed little movement, and one had advanced across the lake into the Magellan peninsula. If in the same area some glaciers advance and others retreat, the cause is clearly not global warming but local micro-conditions.

Yet the Greenpeace photos gave the impression that glaciers in general were in rapid retreat. It was a con job, a dishonest effort to mislead. From the same icefield, another major glacier spilling into Chile has grown 60% in volume.

Greenpeace and other ecological groups have well-intentioned people with high ideals. But as crusaders they want to win by any means, honest or not. I do not like being taken for a ride, by idealists or anyone else.

We need impartial research, funded neither by MNCs, governmental groups or NGOs with private agendas. And the media needs to stop highlighting disaster scares and ignoring exposes of the scares.

This is a very good article. When I submitted this thread about the earth's wobble affecting the earth's climate cycles I thought the idea would show that some demons, devils, dragons etc are insurmountable and uneffected by our rather insignificant efforts to stop change.

What the article is suggesting is that scientists who are new to the industry of research and grants etc will resort to making up a problem so that they can get research grants to study it, make a name for themselves and pay their rent. This allegation can extend beyond the "global warming" nemisis to cancer, diabetes, AIDS and a host of other "perceived" challenges to the well being of humans. How do we determine what is a real threat and what is a Trojan Horse that offers the entry of ambitious researchers into the treasury coffers of the public trust?

Staying on the topic of this thread I thought I'd provide a link that has very good graphics explaining the earth's eccentricity and "wobbles". Its a little strange that most references to the Milankovitch cycles exclusively site them as the cause of cooling (as in Ice Ages). It seems logical that the same cycles could be shown to cause warming (as in "Global Warming") on the earth.